Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution?
Mass Protests Force President to Resignby Alan Maass
www.dissidentvoice.org
June 7, 2005Socialist Worker

Bolivian
President Carlos Mesa was driven out of office yesterday, following weeks
of escalating protests demanding nationalization of the country’s natural
gas resources.

Who will succeed
Mesa is still uncertain as we go to press, but it was clear that the
popular movement against transnational corporate domination of Bolivia’s
natural resources and the country’s own native elite had scored a huge
victory.

The upheaval in
Bolivia is the latest flashpoint in a wave of struggle crisscrossing Latin
America -- from Ecuador, where the government of Lucio Gutierrez was
toppled in April, to Venezuela, with the sharpening of anti-imperialist
sentiment in the face of renewed threats from the U.S.

Latin America has
become a crucible, where Washington-backed free-market policies known as
neoliberalism are despised by the mass of the population. Capitalism and
political systems that serve only the rich may be dealt a series of
crippling blows.

Nowhere is the
struggle for a society based on solving the problems and meeting the needs
of ordinary people more advanced than in Bolivia.

Tom Lewis is the
co-author -- with Bolivian popular leader Oscar Olivera -- of the South
End Press book
Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia, on the struggle for water rights
in one of Bolivia’s largest cities. Here, Tom explains the background to
the crisis and weighs the prospects for revolution in Bolivia.

What led to the
toppling of Carlos Mesa?

Tom Lewis:
Mass protests have been underway in Bolivia since the middle of May, but
they reached a new pitch at the beginning of June when leading sectors
among Bolivia’s urban and rural workers rejected the idea of postponing
the nationalization of natural gas resources until after a Constituent
Assembly.

Bolivia’s Congress
had said no to nationalization the week before, but was to consider
convoking the assembly and holding a referendum on regional autonomy. As
president, Carlos Mesa had already issued a decree calling for the
assembly and referendum. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that only
Congress could convene a Constituent Assembly.

But protesters
refused to settle for the assembly and referendum -- measures clearly
aimed at breaking the momentum of the recent mobilizations.

As of the first
weekend in June, the capital of La Paz came to a virtual standstill, with
its gas supplies exhausted from almost two weeks of continuous roadblocks.
Cochabamba and Oruro saw large demonstrations, including the occupation of
gas refineries. At the end of the week, the government minister for
economic development resigned, revealing a crisis in the Mesa’s cabinet.

In Santa Cruz, where
a pro-neoliberal elite wants to secede in order to keep intact their
lucrative contracts with transnational petroleum corporations, right-wing
gangs violently attacked peaceful pro-nationalization marches by peasants,
teachers and health workers. Pro-nationalization protesters encircled the
city and cut it off from land access. All told, more than 55 road
blockades disrupted the main highways and commerce in seven of Bolivia’s
nine departments or states.

Meanwhile, after
receiving the green light from Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church in
Bolivia called for a national dialogue -- to unify the interests of the
Bolivian land oligarchy and pro-transnational gas elite of the eastern
states, on the one hand, with those of the moderate reform sectors of the
popular movements, on the other.

The moderate reform
sectors include Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism party (MAS),
which, with Mesa, has repeatedly called for Church involvement. Last
Sunday, priests called from the pulpit for social peace, the abandonment
of “extremism” and the reconciliation of rich and poor.

But unions, social
movement organizations and the radicalized base of peasant and indigenous
movements clearly rejected this initiative.

As they prepared for
a new week of struggle, Mesa announced that he was resigning. Who will
become president is unclear. The next two officials in the line of
succession are representatives of the pro-neoliberal elite from the
eastern provinces and are unlikely to be accepted.

The goal of the
elites will be to find someone who can organize early elections -- with
the hope that Evo Morales will become president, so he can exert some
control over the social forces he claims to represent.

But none of this is
certain. Everything appears to be up for grabs in Bolivia, including state
power. Every outcome to the struggle also seems possible -- from a radical
revolution that could overturn neoliberalism, to the fracturing of the
popular movement, to a military coup, to a foreign military occupation
under the auspices of the United Nations or Organization of American
States.

What is the
background to the current upheaval?

Lewis: Ordinary
working Bolivians are fighting to get rid of the stranglehold that
transnational corporations have on Bolivia’s economy. They are also
fighting to strip power away from a political elite who they view as in
bed with the transnationals -- as vendepatrias (corrupt officials
willing to sell off Bolivia’s patrimony on the cheap).

Ever since the
popular victory achieved during Cochabamba’s Water War in April 2000
--when mass struggle defeated a plan to privatize the city’s water system
-- the struggle of the Bolivian people has focused mainly on reclaiming
workers’ and citizens’ control of Bolivia’s natural resources. The
experience of throwing U.S.-based Bechtel out of Cochabamba -- and of then
turning the city’s water service over to the elected representatives of a
citizens’ and workers’ self-management team--inspired the confidence and
determination of Bolivia’s disenfranchised majority.

Natural gas and oil
have been the rallying point of the social movements, unions and
indigenous organizations since 2003. In September 2003, a re-launched
Coalition for the Defense and Recovery of Gas -- the successor of the
Water Coalition that led the Cochabamba struggle in 2000 -- held large
demonstrations across the country for the nationalization of natural gas.

These actions
coincided with the government’s lethal repression of demonstrations in
favor of indigenous rights in the altiplano -- the densely
populated region surrounding La Paz. Indigenous and gas groups quickly
combined forces to carry out intensified mobilizations against the
government.

Altiplano peasants,
alongside workers from the mostly indigenous “rim” city of El Alto,
spearheaded the mobilizations. Over the course of three weeks, some 60
protesters were murdered by troops and police following the orders of
then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

Street battles
erupted in La Paz demanding S&aacute;nchez de Lozada’s resignation and
prosecution. Eventually, the armies of protesters proved overwhelming.
After then-Vice President Carlos Mesa and other political figures
repudiated the use of lethal force, Sanchez de
Lozada fled to safe haven in Miami.

Mesa took over as
president and named a cabinet of non-partisan “technocrats”. During an
address to an assembled throng in La Paz’s Plaza de San Francisco, he
promised to hold a popular referendum on natural gas in 2004.

Why have the social
movements continued to oppose Mesa?

Lewis: When Mesa
made known the options to be listed on the 2004 ballot, it became clear
that the gas referendum was a trap. The word “nationalization” appeared
nowhere, and choices were worded to let Mesa interpret the results in any
way he wanted. At that point, the majority of the left, including many of
the social movements and the main trade union federation (COB), urged
people either to boycott the referendum or deface their ballots by writing
“nationalization” across the front.

As expected, Mesa
used the referendum results to justify his own neoliberal policies on the
gas issue. He vowed that he would neither break nor renegotiate existing
contracts with the transnationals. Mesa did agree to have Congress draft a
new Hydrocarbon Law, but he expected it would not be much of a blow to the
transnationals’ mega-profits.

Last March, however,
Congress passed a Hydrocarbon Law that took Mesa by surprise. The new law
not only kept an already existing requirement that levied 18 percent
royalties on the profits of transnational gas corporations, but it also
tacked on another 32 percent in taxes.

Mesa fumed that the
law was too anti-transnational. The left saw it as not anti-transnational
enough, since the new law left open a number of loopholes. The left also
objected to the 18 percent-plus-32 percent formula, preferring a straight
50 percent royalties. There is a crucial difference in Bolivian law
between royalties and taxes. Royalties are distributed equitably among
Bolivia’s states, while taxes flow directly into the national
treasury--leaving the discredited national political elite to decide how
to spend them.

Mesa refused to sign
the law, but a provision in the Bolivian Constitution allowed the Senate
president to promulgate it in the Congress’s name. During the legal
contest between the transnationals, the legislature and the executive
branch that followed, the Supreme Court shocked the country by declaring
all existing contracts with transnational gas companies to be null and
void. The Constitution apparently required Congressional approval at the
time the contracts were signed, but no one brought them before Congress.

Meanwhile, gas
protesters grew tired of the technical debates over royalties. The social
movements and unions also mistrust the ability of the various government
branches, which are all controlled by the political elite, to resolve the
gas issue in the interests of ordinary working people.

Activists began to
mobilize around the demand for “nationalization.” This slogan resolved the
reigning political confusion by orienting protests on the fundamental
question of who finally would control the fate of Bolivia’s natural gas:
the Bolivian people or the transnational corporations?

How did the latest
phase of the struggle start?

Lewis: The week of
May 16 saw a series of protests directed at Mesa, including a “symbolic
takeover” of a gas refinery near Cochabamba and the encirclement of La Paz
with road blockades. The mobilization in La Paz involved tens of thousands
of people and was coordinated by the El Alto Federation of Neighborhood
Associations (FEJUVE), led by Abel Mamani.

By midweek, Roberto
de la Cruz of the El Alto Regional Labor Confederation (COR) had called
for an indefinite “civic” or general strike to begin May 23. The Gas
Coalition’s Oscar Olivera, Jaime Solares of the COB, Felipe Quispe of the
Bolivian Peasant Workers Union (CSUTCB), and the leaders of a dozen other
organizations, including La Paz miners and teachers, quickly pledged their
forces. Marchers paralyzed La Paz from Monday, May 23 until pausing for a
truce to observe a religious holiday on Thursday, May 26.

On May 24,
indigenous Aymara protesters tried to occupy the Plaza de Murillo and
enter the Congress building. At first, they were repelled with police
batons and tear gas, but they eventually pushed to within 60 feet of
Congress. Government snipers then appeared on top of nearby buildings. The
demonstration included large numbers of mineworkers, who responded by
hurling dynamite sticks at the snipers. The battle continued throughout
the day.

Following the
Thursday truce, the MAS called for an extension until May 31. But peasant
and indigenous organizations vowed to return on May 30, as did the COB,
the COR and the Gas Coalition, in order to keep pressure on the government
for hydrocarbon nationalization.

Over the weekend of
May 28, Bolivia’s Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDHB), proposed a
national dialogue virtually identical to the one later presented by the
Church. The APDHB urged a “compromise” package that attracted support from
the Mesa government and Evo Morales’ MAS. The package called first for the
government to guarantee democratic freedoms and human rights. It then went
on to call for a dual process of holding an official referendum on
regional autonomy and of convening a Constituent Assembly.

The autonomy
referendum is obviously meant to placate the transnationals and the
wealthy political elite of the oil-rich eastern states of Bolivia,
especially Santa Cruz. Local capitalists with ties to the transnationals
have threatened secession since October 2003 as a way of avoiding the
nationalization of oil and gas.

Last week, the
eastern elite announced that their provinces would hold their own autonomy
referendum on August 12. They want to hold the referendum before the
Constituent Assembly meets, since they would be able to demand a greater
share of delegates.

The Constituent
Assembly is a promise Mesa made to the social movements and unions as long
ago as October 2003, but he has yet to make good on it. Many left groups
support the idea of a Constituent Assembly in general, but they disagree
on whether the assembly should be convened by the state -- as the APDHB
and Church proposals provide -- or self-convened by the social movements.

Leading sectors of
the left, including the FEJUVE, the COR and the COB, see any attempt to
convene the Constituent Assembly at this moment as little more than a
trap--much like the gas referendum proved to be. The fear is that it will
divert energies presently directed at nationalization and revolution into
a parliamentary cul-de-sac, enabling neoliberal forces to control the
proceedings. This would result in compromises to insure the continued
dominance of Bolivia’s economy and society by imperialism and its partners
in Bolivia’s ruling class.

Could Mesa be
toppled?

The Mesa government
is extraordinarily weak. If a fully organized popular alternative existed,
the government would have fallen by now. It can still fall in a matter of
minutes. Even debates at the top of society over what to do in order to
quell the mass rebellion include holding early elections.

Many people outside
of Bolivia think that the Evo Morales’s MAS represents the country’s
salvation from capitalism’s chokehold. But a glance at the MAS’s actions
during and after the Gas War shows this is not the case.

The MAS could have
led or formed part of a new anti-neoliberal government in the wake of
October 2003. Instead, it lobbied for Mesa’s succession, knowing full well
that Mesa differed not one whit from

Sanchez de Lozada
on economic policy. During the Mesa administration, the MAS has, in fact,
acted as a pillar of support for the Mesa government at key moments.

Unlike the rest of
the left, for example, Morales campaigned in favor of the July 2004 gas
referendum, telling people that voting “yes” on the two key questions
would mean imposing 50 percent royalties on transnational oil companies.
Of course, Morales was wrong, and it is hard to believe that he didn’t
know this beforehand.

The only thing that
explains the behavior of Morales and the MAS is their slide into
electoralism. Ever since Morales garnered second place and 22 percent of
the vote in the 2002 presidential elections, the MAS has directed almost
all of its energies into Morales’s upcoming bid for the presidency in
2007.

This means that the
MAS has repeatedly sought to contain Bolivia’s social rebellion. If the
MAS were thrust into power on the wave of popular revolt, it would risk a
dangerous confrontation with U.S. imperialism. The MAS wants to be voted
into office instead.

But it is paying a
high price in the weakening of its ties to the social movements and its
growing “moderation” in order to appear “respectable” to international
capital. Morales’s support for Mesa and Bolivia’s existing political
system cost the MAS in fall 2004 municipal elections. Despite two years of
an electoral focus, it polled only 11 percent nationwide -- half of its
2002 total.

This was a wakeup
call for the MAS. Morales had to shift left in order to recover at least
part of his base among anti-neoliberal activists. He sought to jump to the
forefront of the gas struggle in the early months of this year, defending
the position of 50 percent royalties over and against the
18-percent-plus-32-percent formula.

Morales’s reunion
with the social movements and labor organizations has proven short-lived,
however, since he has refused to support the slogan of “nationalization.”
Why did he refuse? “Nationalization” flies too much in the face of U.S.
and transnational corporate interests.

Indeed, the MAS has
latched onto the APDHB/Church proposal and a speedy move toward a
Constituent Assembly with relief. The Constituent Assembly, at least as
contemplated by the government and the bulk of the reform-minded NGOs,
would give both Mesa and Morales what they desperately want: Each could
survive politically until the presidential elections of 2007.

What are the
prospects for the revolutionary left in Bolivia today?

Lewis:
A broad revolutionary left does exist in Bolivia, but it is only now
finding effective ways to work together.

One advantage in
Boliva is that unlike most other Latin American countries, the unions and
large sections of the organized working class are deeply involved with the
struggles of the social movements. The COB and de la Cruz’s wing of the
COR are among the most revolutionary sectors in Bolivia. This is a
relatively recent development, arising from the ouster back in April 2003
of a corrupt union leadership in bed with the government.

Small revolutionary
parties also exist and have made important contributions to the ideas and
debates that have emerged in the course of struggle. Most still have
difficulty communicating effectively within the social movements, however,
because of decades of working in isolation.

The main weakness of
Bolivia’s “anti-capitalist” forces has been the lack of clarity about the
need to fight for and win state power outside the electoral arena. This
seems to be changing rapidly at present. The electoral road is clearly
seen as a dead end by large numbers of the rank and file of the social
movements today, as well as by movement leaders such as Abel Mamani, Jaime
Solares, Roberto de la Cruz and Oscar Olivera.

The shift to the
center by Morales’s MAS demonstrates why people increasingly see the MAS
as a brake on the struggle. This is same trajectory of betrayal that
accompanied the election of Lula and the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil.

Another weakness of
the left is the unsettled issue of the place of indigenous
self-determination and autonomy in the social revolution. More and more,
indigenous organizations and the trade union and social movement sectors
of Bolivia’s social rebellion are working together to coordinate their
actions.

The fight for
nationalization and popular control of natural resources has identified
neoliberalism as the common enemy and provided the basis for unity in
action. Yet unambiguous and universal support for the indigenous right of
self-determination has not developed. A clear policy of support is key to
a successful revolution in Bolivia, since indigenous peasant workers who
were betrayed by the urban-based revolutionaries in the revolution of 1952
and the Constituent Assembly of 1970 still harbor suspicions.

Finally, there is no
agreement among the left concerning the goals of the struggle. Many
indigenous fighters want to re-establish their historic society. Many
“anti-capitalist” protesters fight instead for “nationalization” and a
return to the nationalist welfare state that characterized much of Latin
America (both in populist and dictatorial forms) from the 1940s through
the mid-1980s. This form of state capitalism is remembered for providing
close-to-full employment and access to basic services.

Still others are
fighting for socialism. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what some mean
by “socialism” from what others mean by “nationalization.” But there are
growing numbers who identify “socialism” with urban and rural workers’
self-government; with workers’ self-management of industry, land and
natural resources; and with the deepest democracy possible -- including
the right to self-determination for Bolivia’s indigenous peoples.

Much still remains
to be done to win the majority of Bolivians to this idea of socialism, but
the events of the next few weeks will offer many opportunities to advance.
Success will require consciously revolutionary organization, in which
fighters who share such a view of socialism come together in order to
strategize and to intervene in struggles--with the aim of winning
ever-broader layers of Bolivian society to understanding revolutionary,
democratic socialism as a real alternative to U.S. imperialism and
Bolivian capitalism.

Alan Maass
is an editor with Socialist Worker.
This article
will appear in SW's June 10, 2005 edition.